Mike MacDonald
Contributor
The Toronto Pride Parade is navigating turbulent waters.
Now that Toronto has won the bid to host the mega-festival “WorldPride 2014”, a huge groundswell of queer and trans people are calling for a “decommercialized” Pride that will better represent the issues of the whole community.
In February 2011, a diverse group of queer and trans organizations assembled a report of 133 recommendations for the future of the Pride festival. The report called for Pride to “decrease its reliance upon corporate funding, and reinstate control to Pride Toronto and the communities it serves.”
The report also demanded that purely commercial advertising be banned from the festival. The recommendations were fully accepted by Toronto Pride and a committee was formed to implement them over the next two years of Pride parades.
Pride 2011 saw many of these 133 recommendations come into effect. Francisco Alvarez, co-chair for Pride’s board of directors, explains Pride’s efforts to be more politically inclusive: “We did outreach for members from [marginalized] groups to join our board and volunteer committees. We definitely put an emphasis on [marginalized] groups in our entertainment program […] it’s a process, a goal that you always move towards but you are never really there,” he admits.
However, when asked about the future of Pride’s corporate dependence, Alvarez contradicts the goals of the community’s recommendations. “From my perspective, the corporate presence was still very much there [at Pride 2011].”
Furthermore, he explains that playing host to WorldPride will demand an accelerated expansion of Pride Toronto over the next three years. “This year we are starting to negotiate three-year agreements with our sponsors because they all want to be with us in 2014 when we do WorldPride,” he says.
Alvarez notes that some of the recommendations are “not feasible for [Pride Toronto] to do, for either financial or logistical reasons.”
Fourth-year women’s studies and sexuality studies major Brendan Wilson, who helped organize the TBLGAY (Trans, Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, and Allies at York) parade float for Pride 2011, thinks the future of Toronto Pride may be in trouble if corporations secure spots in the event.
“I am afraid that Pride is going to continue on its corporate path, and continue to produce a limited and standardized representation of queer bodies and politics,” says Wilson. “You don’t hear much in the way of claps and cheers for the marginalized organizations, but the crowds will cheer for the big corporate floats.”
Today, the festival sits at a crucial crossroad.
This is a moment where the activist community cannot simply retreat to an “all or nothing” ultimatum. Corporate Pride is a flawed design, but the festival is the most powerful point of contact between queer and trans communities and the wider panorama of Toronto. We also cannot overlook the fact that Pride channels a lot of money into queer and trans organizations and establishments; money that is otherwise hard to come by. The committee responsible for implementing the 133 recommended changes will certainly be holding public consultations, and anyone with an interest in the future of Pride is strongly encouraged to attend.
